CYBERNETIC LISTENING

Cybernetic Listening is an art collective, founded in 2023 by Isaac Sullivan and Zaid Sajdi, which contemplates the digitally mediated body while tracing and configuring new lines of interspecies communication. Now joined by architect Neda Salmanpour and artist Ruby Bailey, the group is working with biofeedback and large-language-model-generated text; and is based in Amman, Dubai, Johannesburg, and New York.

The first iteration of Cybernetic Listening — as part of an artist residency at MMAG Foundation, Amman in June 2023 — took the form of a site-responsive installation that incorporated an immersive, ambient soundscape and a live dialogue between the AI, Chyron, and a lemon tree generated using biofeedback, GPT-3, and a custom-coded app.